The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

As a lad in England, Jack Simpson worked at a beachfront donkey ride—an experience that came in handy years later when, as an ANZAC stretcher-bearer, he discovered a donkey cowering in a Turkish gully. With shells exploding all around, he manufactured a lead rope from field dressings and in following weeks gamely walked a regular route, carrying water up to the front lines and hundreds of casualties back down through “Shrapnel Alley.” As did more than 300,000 of his fellows, he caught a bullet at last and was buried with particular reverence nearby, in a cemetery aptly called Hell Spit. Lessac downplays pain, blood and violence in her stylized, richly hued gouache paintings, depicting instead battlefields strewn with small bushes and flowers and uniformed human figures, wounded or just weary, carrying themselves with quiet dignity. Little studied in this country but a watershed campaign for the nations that fought it, the bitter battle of Gallipoli stands in for every war in this simply told tale. “Lest we forget...” (historical notes, bibliography) (Picture book/nonfiction. 10-12)

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